Mostly About Organized Crime

02/17/2014

Andranik Aloyan has been convicted by a federal jury for his role in a racketeering conspiracy orchestrated by the Los Angeles-based Armenian Power that "included stealing personal and financial information of elderly bank customers who held accounts that were valued at more than $25 million" according to an FBI press release: "Aloyan was among 90 individuals charged in two indictments, including a 140-count indictment in July 2011 charging 70 defendants with a variety of criminal activities associated with the Armenian Power gang," and "seventy-seven defendants have previously been convicted or pleaded guilty to the indictments."

08/16/2012

Nune Gevorkyan, a clerk at the federal courthouse in Los Angeles, CA, and her husband Oganes Koshkaryan have been charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly leaking sealed criminal indictments against suspected members of the organized crime syndicate Armenian Power prior to their actual arrests in February 2011 as reported by The Smoking Gun: "investigators discovered the alleged scheme earlier this year after a leader of the Armenian Power gang began cooperating with federal agents and prosecutors, according to an affidavit sworn by FBI agent Corrie Lyle."

The estimates for billing fraud under the Medicare and Medicaid programs range from $20 to $100 billion each year. Electronic processing of claims from providers has allowed fraud against the government programs on a massive scale because they "are adjudicated by computers using rule-based systems, with no human intervention at all" as reported by Malcolm Sparrow for the Los Angeles Times: "those committing fraud find it easy to get paid for fabricated claims because the government's systems check for billing correctness but not for truthfulness."

The low-risk, high-reward scam even has attracted real mobsters. Of course, they just use phantom clinics through which to submit the phony claims.

In October 2010 the feds charged 73 defendants, including dozens of reputed members and associates of the transnational Armenian crime group known as the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian, for their alleged roles in a multi-state $163 million billing fraud scheme against Medicare according to an FBI press release:

According to the indictments, the defendants allegedly stole the identities of doctors and thousands of Medicare beneficiaries and operated at least 118 different phony clinics in 25 states for the purposes of submitting Medicare reimbursements. "The emergence of international organized crime in domestic health care fraud schemes signals a dangerous expansion that poses a serious threat to consumers as these syndicates are willing to exploit almost any program, business or individual to earn an illegal profit," said Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grinder.

According to the allegations contained in the indictment the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian "is named for its principal leaders, Davit Mirzoyan and Robert Terdjanian." Its leadership "is based in Los Angeles and New York" although "its operations extend throughout the United States and internationally." Among those indicted was Armen Kazarian whom the FBI alleged was a "Vor" or "thief-in-law" which the G-men characterized as "a member of a select group of high-level criminals from Russia and the countries that has been part of the former Soviet Union, including Armenia."

03/23/2012

Four reputed Armenian Power gangsters "have been convicted for their roles in one of the largest bank fraud and identity theft schemes in California history" according to a press release by the Department of Justice: "this case is indicative of the growing trend of gang or organized crime-affiliated groups now engaging in identity theft and other financial crimes in furtherance of their enterprise." Over a six-year period the defendants and others stole more than $10 million dollars from victims across the southwest in a sophisticated scheme which involved the help of bank insiders.

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